topsoil

In an ideal world I'd love to see a World Cup similar to that of football or rugby union. A tournament in one country over a couple of weeks, two team matches, but unfortunately that would cause too many mismatches. Football can get away with for e.g. Italy v New Zealand in the 2010 World Cup but can you imagine Poland v Hungary or Slovakia at speedway? Maybe a divisional type of tournament? Have matches between Poland / Australia / Sweden / Denmark / GB / Russia? in division one, Czech Republic, Germany, USA, Slovenia, Finland, Italy in division two? promotion / relegation? Having said all that the run off and final this year were extraordinary. The level of skill was a big step up from that seen at league level week in week out. It is a big step up for a lot of riders and this is where I feel the British riders miss out by not being exposed to this sort of level of intensity more often. How many riders did we see this week riding above themselves because they were riding for their county? Anybody watching the sport this week had to be impressed.

They used to say happiness was 40-38. Berwick totally got out of jail by getting a 5-1 in heat 15. To be honest though the result was irrelevant to me tonight. Never actually saw Alex's crash because I was looking at Tyson Nelson laying it down to try and avoid Jade. you could tell it was serious straight away though because There was just a collective gasp then a horrible silence. Only hope Alex is okay. As for the meeting Kozza and Pepe were superb for Bandits, Seb and Lee turned their meetings around late on. For Rye House I was very impressed with Tyson Nelson. The race where Kozza went round him was worth the entrance money itself. Great to see Adrian back tonight.

I think the nail was hit on the head before. Tai Woofinden has been over-hyped this season, but only because Britain has very little else to shout about right now and commentators are desperate for somebody to label as the next best thing. I've only seen him a couple of times this season (on TV in the World Cup ride off and live at the PLRC) and he has impressed me. Let him develop in his own time!

I'm posting this on behalf of a friend who is too shy to come on here. This year we (4 of us) stayed at the Holiday Inn for the Cardiff GP weekend. Can't fault the hotel, great location, everything at hand. We booked in for next year as the date was announced. Bit annoyed that the prices have taken a hike but I suppose that's the same with everything else these days. What is also annoying is that they stateon the booking form that they only require a deposit of £50 at the moment (gives you a bit of time to save up for the rest). Except that they've now taken the full price of our credit cards. On phoning up to complain about this we were basically told if we didn't like it we could cancel. Just feels like another dig from the hotel chains who seem to be increasingly exploiting the GP weekend. Just wondered if anybody else has had a similar experience?